Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards

The winners of the Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards have been announced. The awards celebrate “excellence in Canadian writing that reflects Jewish themes and subjects in history, fiction, Yiddish, theatre and other fields.” This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Canadian Jewish Book Awards. The awards will be presented on June 4 at 8:00 p.m at the Leah Posluns Theatre (4588 Bathurst Street, Toronto).

The Canadian Society for Yad Vashem Award in Holocaust Memoir and LiteratureBits and Pieces by Henia Reinhartz (The Azrieli Foundation)

The Samuel and Rose Cohen Memorial Award in Biography/MemoirThey Called Me Meyer July: Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust by Mayer Kirshenblatt and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (University of California Press)

Over the past few years, in order to buy peanut butter and bread and pay rent, I’ve taken on a number of manuscript assessments for various readers. I was first put on to them by my friend Michelle MacAleese (a next-level freelance editor and consultant), and have done them as part as the recently closed Humber School of Writers Agency (now offered through Humber Publishing Services), and, mostly, as individual projects for the prospective author. Some of these authors are professionals in another arts field, trying their hand at a novel or collection of stories, and some of them are fledgling authors who are bravely trying to break into this business of writing and publishing a book.